ALBERT

Description: In flood modelling, many one-dimensional (1-D) hydrodynamic models are too restricted in capturing the spatial differentiation of processes within a polder or system of polders and two-dimensional (2-D) models are very demanding in data requirements and computational resources. The latter is an important consideration when uncertainty analyses using the Monte Carlo techniques are to complement the modelling exercises. This paper describes the development of a quasi-2-D modeling approach, which still calculates the dynamic wave in 1-D but the discretisation of the computational units are in 2-D, allowing a better spatial representation of the flow in polders and avoiding large additional expenditure on data pre-processing and computational time. The model DYNHYD (1-D hydrodynamics) from the WASP5 modeling package was used as a basis for the simulations and extended to incorporate the quasi-2-D approach. A local sensitivity analysis shows the sensitivity of parameters and boundary conditions on the filling volume of polders and capping of the peak discharge in the main river system. Two flood events on the Elbe River, Germany were used to calibrate and test the model. The results show a good capping effect on the flood peak by the proposed systems. The effect of capping reduces as the flood wave propagates down stream from the polders (up to 0.5 cm of capping is decreased for each additional kilometer from the polder).

Description: Annual maximum discharge is analyzed in the Mekong river in Southeast Asia with regard to trends in average flood and trends in variability during the 20th century. Data from four gauging stations downstream of Vientiane, Laos, were used, covering two distinct hydrological regions within the Mekong basin. These time series span through over 70 years and are the longest daily discharge time series available in the region. The methods used, Mann Kendal test (MK), ordinary least squares with resampling (OLS) and non-stationary generalized extreme value function (NSGEV), are first tested in a Monte Carlo experiment, in order to evaluate their detection power in presence of changing variance in the time series. The time series are generated using the generalized extreme value function with varying scale and location parameter. NSGEV outperforms MK and OLS, both because it resulted in less type II errors, but also because it allows for a more complete description of the trends, allowing to separate trends in average and in variability. Results from MK, OLS and NSGEV agreed on trends in average flood behaviour. However, the introduction of a time-varying scale parameter in the NSGEV allowed to isolate flood variability from the trend in average flood and to have a more complete view of the changes. Overall, results showed an increasing likelihood of extreme floods during the last half of the century, although the probability of an average flood decreased during the same period. A period of enhanced variance in the last quarter of the 20th century, estimated with the wavelet power spectrum as a function of time, was identified, which confirmed the results of the NSGEV. We conclude that the absence of detected positive trends in the hydrological time series was a methodological misconception due to over-simplistic models.

Description: Hydraulic models for flood propagation description are an essential tool in many fields and are used, for example, for flood hazard and risk assessments, evaluation of flood control measures, etc. Nowadays there are many models of different complexity regarding the mathematical foundation and spatial dimensions available, and most of them are comparatively easy to operate due to sophisticated tools for model setup and control. However, the calibration of these models is still underdeveloped in contrast to other models like e.g. hydrological models or models used in ecosystem analysis. This has two primary reasons: first, lack of relevant data against which the models can be calibrated, because flood events are very rarely monitored due to the disturbances inflicted by them and the lack of appropriate measuring equipment in place. Second, 2-D models are computationally very demanding and therefore the use of available sophisticated automatic calibration procedures is restricted in many cases. This study takes a well documented flood event in August 2002 at the Mulde River in Germany as an example and investigates the most appropriate calibration strategy for a simplified 2-D hyperbolic finite element model. The model independent optimiser PEST, that enables automatic calibrations without changing model code, is used and the model is calibrated against over 380 surveyed maximum water levels. The application of the parallel version of the optimiser showed that (a) it is possible to use automatic calibration in combination of 2-D hydraulic model, and (b) equifinality of model parameterisation can also be caused by a too large number of degrees of freedom in the calibration data in contrast to a too simple model setup. In order to improve model calibration and reduce equifinality, a method was developed to identify calibration data, resp. model setup with likely errors that obstruct model calibration.

Description: The Mekong River in Southeast Asia thanks its regular annual flood to the southwest monsoon. At longer time scales, the monsoon is a spatially and temporally variable circulation, with different annual to millennial variation for different regions. In this paper, the Indian and the Western Pacific components of the monsoon were analyzed to draw a light on the interannual flood variability of the Mekong River. The focus is on the variance of flood season flows at 8 stations on the Mekong River, as well as on well-known climate indexes that reflect the dynamics of the monsoon circulation and ocean temperature anomalies. An effort was made to identify the temporal resolution that contains most of the interannual variability of both flood regime of the Mekong and monsoon intensity. We found a close connection between the Western Pacific monsoon and the discharge in Kratie and other stations in the Southern Mekong region. In the frequency domain, the interannual to decadal variance of the Mekong discharge closely follows that of the Western Pacific monsoon. More importantly, the well-known regime shift of 1976 in the North Pacific is detectable in the frequency domain for flood discharge and monsoon intensity. This suggests a relationship between Pacific sea surface temperature and monsoon variance, which is a good predictor for flood variance. This dependence influences the probability of occurrence of floods in the Mekong Delta.

Description: Quantity and quality of sediment deposition in complex floodplains are affected by many processes that are typically highly spatially and temporally variable and hard to quantify exactly. The main processes in this context are suspended sediment transport dynamics in rivers, floodplain channel interactions, and internal floodplain processes. In consequence, any point measurement of sedimentation in floodplains contains a high degree of uncertainty, both stemming from measurement errors and from the lack of representativeness for a larger area. However, up to now, uncertainty analyses have not been performed as part of publications on floodplain sedimentation data. Therefore the present work illustrates a field sampling strategy aiming at the monitoring of floodplain deposition and spatial variability on a large scale and at the quantification of uncertainties associated to sediment deposition data. The study was performed in the Mekong Delta, being an example for a large and complex floodplain with a high degree of anthropogenic disturbances. We present a procedure for the quantification of the uncertainty associated to the data, based on the design of the monitoring campaign, sampling procedures, and floodplain characteristics. Sediment traps were distributed strategically over the floodplain in clusters of three mat traps representing one monitoring point. The uncertainty originating from collection of the traps from still ponding water is quantified by lab experiments. The overall uncertainty of the deposition samples and the associated nutrient content is quantified in a Monte Carlo simulation and illustrated by uncertainty bounds. For the study area the results show a very high variability of the annual floodplain deposition (2.2–60 kg m−2) with uncertainty bounds ranging from −61 to +129% relative to overall mean deposition of 11.4 kg m−2. No correlations in the spatial distribution of sedimentation in the floodplains could be found. This is caused by the highly complex channel and dike system and the high number of hydraulic structures. Also, no differences in deposition between floodplain compartments protected with high and low dikes could be detected. However, it can be shown that within single floodplain compartments the spatial deposition variability depends on the dike levels and operation and location of hydraulic structures.

Description: Automatic and multi-objective calibration of hydrodynamic models is – compared to other disciplines like e.g. hydrology – still underdeveloped. This has mainly two reasons: the lack of appropriate data and the large computational demand in terms of CPU-time. Both aspects are aggravated in large-scale applications. However, there are recent developments that improve the situation on both the data and computing side. Remote sensing, especially radar-based techniques proved to provide highly valuable information on flood extents, and in case high precision DEMs are present, also on spatially distributed inundation depths. On the computing side the use of parallelization techniques brought significant performance gains. In the presented study we build on these developments by calibrating a large-scale 1-dimensional hydrodynamic model of the whole Mekong Delta downstream of Kratie in Cambodia: we combined in-situ data from a network of river gauging stations, i.e. data with high temporal but low spatial resolution, with a series of inundation maps derived from ENVISAT Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) satellite images, i.e. data with low temporal but high spatial resolution, in an multi-objective automatic calibration process. It is shown that an automatic, multi-objective calibration of hydrodynamic models, even of such complexity and on a large scale and complex as a model for the Mekong Delta, is possible. Furthermore, the calibration process revealed model deficiencies in the model structure, i.e. the representation of the dike system in Vietnam, which would have been difficult to detect by a standard manual calibration procedure.

Description: Hydraulic models for flood propagation description are an essential tool in many fields, e.g. civil engineering, flood hazard and risk assessments, evaluation of flood control measures, etc. Nowadays there are many models of different complexity regarding the mathematical foundation and spatial dimensions available, and most of them are comparatively easy to operate due to sophisticated tools for model setup and control. However, the calibration of these models is still underdeveloped in contrast to other models like e.g. hydrological models or models used in ecosystem analysis. This has basically two reasons: first, the lack of relevant data against the models can be calibrated, because flood events are very rarely monitored due to the disturbances inflicted by them and the lack of appropriate measuring equipment in place. Secondly, especially the two-dimensional models are computationally very demanding and therefore the use of available sophisticated automatic calibration procedures is restricted in many cases. This study takes a well documented flood event in August 2002 at the Mulde River in Germany as an example and investigates the most appropriate calibration strategy for a full 2-D hyperbolic finite element model. The model independent optimiser PEST, that gives the possibility of automatic calibrations, is used. The application of the parallel version of the optimiser to the model and calibration data showed that a) it is possible to use automatic calibration in combination of 2-D hydraulic model, and b) equifinality of model parameterisation can also be caused by a too large number of degrees of freedom in the calibration data in contrast to a too simple model setup. In order to improve model calibration and reduce equifinality a method was developed to identify calibration data with likely errors that obstruct model calibration.

Description: Annual maximum discharge is analyzed in the Mekong river in Southeast Asia with regard to average flood trends and variability during the 20th century. Data from four gauging stations downstream of Vientiane, Laos, were used, covering two distinct hydrological regions within the Mekong basin. These time series span through over 70 years and are the longest daily discharge time series available in the region. The methods used, Mann Kendal test (MK), ordinary least squares with resampling (OLS) and non-stationary general extreme value function (NSGEV), are first tested in a Monte Carlo experiment, in order to evaluate their detection power in presence of changing variance in the time series. The time series are generated using the general extreme value function with linearly varying scale and location parameter. NSGEV outperforms MK and OLS, both because it incurred in less type II errors, but also because it allows for a more complete description of the trends, allowing to separate trends in average and in variability Results from MK, OLS and NSGEV agreed on trends in average flood behaviour. However, the introduction of a time-varying scale parameter in the NSGEV allowed to isolate flood variability from the average flood trend and to have a more complete view of the changes. Overall, results showed an increasing likelihood of extreme floods during the last half of the century, although the probability of an average flood decreased during the same period. The variance, estimated with the wavelet power spectrum as a function of time, allowed to identify a period of enhanced variance in the last quarter of the 20th century, which confirmed the results of the NSGEV. We conclude that the initial absence of detected positive trends in the hydrological time series was a methodological misconception due to over-simplistic models.

Description: The Mekong River in Southeast Asia thanks its regular annual flood to the southwest monsoon. At longer time scales, the monsoon is a spatially and temporally variable circulation, with different annual to millennial variation for different regions. In this paper, the Indian and the Western Pacific component of the monsoon were analyzed to draw a light on the interannual flood variability of the Mekong River. The focus is on the variance of flood season flows at 8 stations on the Mekong River, as well as on well-known climate indexes that reflect the dynamics of the monsoon circulation and ocean temperature anomalies. An effort was made to identify the temporal resolution that contains most of the interannual variability of both flood regime of the Mekong and monsoon intensity. We found a close connection between the Western Pacific monsoon and the discharge in Kratie and other stations in the Southern Mekong region. In the frequency domain, the interannual to decadal variance of the Mekong discharge closely follows that of the Western Pacific monsoon. More importantly, the well-known regime shift of 1976 in the North Pacific is detectable in the frequency space for flood discharge and monsoon intensity. This suggests a relationship between Pacific sea surface temperature and monsoon variance, which is a good predictor for flood variance. This dependence influences the probability of occurrence of floods in the Mekong Delta.

Description: Sediment dynamics play a major role in the agricultural and fishery productivity of the Mekong Delta. However, the understanding of sediment dynamics in the delta, one of the most complex river deltas in the world, is very limited. This is a consequence of its large extent, the intricate system of rivers, channels and floodplains, and the scarcity of observations. This study quantifies, for the first time, the suspended sediment transport and sediment deposition in the whole Mekong Delta. To this end, a quasi-2D hydrodynamic model is combined with a cohesive sediment transport model. The combined model is calibrated using six objective functions to represent the different aspects of the hydraulic and sediment transport components. The model is calibrated for the extreme flood season in 2011 and shows good performance for 2 validation years with very different flood characteristics. It is shown how sediment transport and sediment deposition is differentiated from Kratie at the entrance of the delta on its way to the coast. The main factors influencing the spatial sediment dynamics are the river and channel system, dike rings, sluice gate operations, the magnitude of the floods, and tidal influences. The superposition of these factors leads to high spatial variability of sediment transport, in particular in the Vietnamese floodplains. Depending on the flood magnitude, annual sediment loads reaching the coast vary from 48 to 60% of the sediment load at Kratie. Deposited sediment varies from 19 to 23% of the annual load at Kratie in Cambodian floodplains, and from 1 to 6% in the compartmented and diked floodplains in Vietnam. Annual deposited nutrients (N, P, K), which are associated with the sediment deposition, provide on average more than 50% of mineral fertilizers typically applied for rice crops in non-flooded ring dike floodplains in Vietnam. Through the quantification of sediment and related nutrient input, the presented study provides a quantitative basis for estimating the benefits of annual Mekong floods for agriculture and fishery, and is an important piece of information with regard to the assessment of the impacts of deltaic subsidence and climate-change-related sea level rise on delta morphology.